Growing Younger Series

The comic strip “Peanuts” (by Charles Schultz) often had a Biblical theme to it. In one of his comic strips, Lucy and Linus were staring out the window watching it rain and Lucy says… "Boy! Look at it pour. What if it floods the whole world?" Linus says: "It won't. In Genesis 9, God promised Noah that that would never happen again. The sign of that promise is the rainbow." Lucy smiles and says: "You've taken a great load off my mind." And Linus answers: "Sound theology has a way of doing that."

Today, we’re going to talk about teaching SOUND theology. And we’ll be talking about how WE should be the ones teaching that theology. Hebrews says - if you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you ought to be a teachers. There comes a point in every Christian’s life when we need to grow up. And part of growing up is to begin to help others grow in their faith.

The writer of Hebrew was amazed at how lax Christians had become: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” In other words – God expects us to GROW UP! And the thing we should be doing once we’ve grown up is to decide to deliberately find ways to teach others.

Now, we need to realize that - back in the days of the early Church. They didn’t have Sunday School; Mid-week elementary youth groups (JAM); High School Youth Groups; Summer Camps/ Family Camps; No publishing houses that would sell you printed materials... and they didn’t even have church bldgs.

So, how do you teach if you don’t have that stuff? I mean how can you teach if you don’t have those advantages? Well, all you really need in order to be a teacher is to have someone to teach. You don’t need a pulpit, or a classroom to teach. You just have to use what you have to teach what you can. Cartoonists (like Charles Schultz) don’t use pulpits or classrooms. They use humor along with 3 to 4 panels of a comic strip to encourage believers. That’s what they do! They use what they have to teach what they can.

Now, the 1st thing we need to think about today is this - WHY should we want to teach?

ILLUS: Years ago I was talking with a man who was very impressed with himself. He was complaining to me about why more church folks didn’t what he did. He had a whole list of things he did that he was impressed with. He was a very self-absorbed man… and (frankly) he was very self-righteous. I struggled with how to help him understand what he needed to do - and I believe God gave me a scripture I could share with him.

2 Corinthians 3:18 tells us “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass (in a mirror) the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (KJV)”

When I read that scripture, an image of a staircase came to mind: when it comes to spirituality, some folks are 4 to 5 steps up the staircase. The more mature may be 10 to 15 steps up. But then there’s these new folks (teenagers or new converts) and they may be standing at the bottom of the staircase not sure what they have to do or what they have to believe.

So I explained to this “self-absorbed” individual that he was probably 4 or 5 steps up the staircase and it was his job was to reach down to the newcomers and find a way to lift them up to where he is - so they could be changed and reflect more of the glory of God. Then he should look at those further up the staircase and try to figure out how to get to where they were.

My point in telling you this story is this: This illustration explains why you and I should find ways to teach people. We need to help people change so they can reflect more of God’s glory. We need to help them climb the staircase from glory to glory. We need to help the younger believers grow in their faith, so that the church (in turn) can grow stronger and more powerful for Jesus. And we need to take this seriously, because IF we don’t teach new folk to do and believe what we do and believe - one day you and I won’t be around and things might not go well for the church then.